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vartan
2010-06-06, 11:21 PM
How does the Playground feel about the following:

I want to run a horror/mystery game where the supernatural is just coming to light in the modern day world. I tell my players to make the most normal, run-of-the-mill characters and mention nothing of the insanity they must face. They play average Joes and Janes in a world full of paranormality. I've never done CoC and I'm not thinking about it... I'm thinking something like True Blood but you can't be a vamp or telepath out of the gate.

Have you done this? Would you do this? As a player would you ever make a completely normal boring character? How could I encourage people to think so vanilla?

Coidzor
2010-06-06, 11:29 PM
Do you already have a system in mind? And what sort of horror? Blood and guts everywhere horror? Things Man Was Not Meant To Know? Spooky wossnames playing headgames with the cast?

And how completely normal and boring are we talking here? Even Mr. Craptar the Middleschool teacher has his own quirks and foibles and can be an interesting character without having super powerz.

drengnikrafe
2010-06-06, 11:30 PM
Vanilla? Even the world's most boring character can be turned interesting, especially when attacked by the reality of a dark world. Furthermore, even Steve McAccountant at your local H&R Block probably has a lot more interesting backstory than you would think. It's not that the character is boring, it's that he doesn't exist in a fantasy world with exaggerated characteristics.

vartan
2010-06-06, 11:37 PM
For a system? I was thinking M&M. I hear it's quite versatile.

And yes I understand that rl people aren't boring or 2d blah blah blah, but I have a player that's a real powergamer and would gladly like to roll something unreasonable like a black ops/master chef/world class surgeon/hand model. How can you convince such a player to be a salesman at an appliance store?

drengnikrafe
2010-06-06, 11:43 PM
Challenge him. Tell him you know full well there's no way he can make that salesman with an innocent backstory and make it awesome. I know if I were told that, I would not simply roll over and say you were right, I would build the world's coolest salesman with an innocent backstory. And then I would be proud of myself for having done so. Anybody can throw together powerful things and call themselves powerful. It takes skill to take something mediocre and make it awesome.

Umael
2010-06-07, 12:34 AM
When starting with a game full of average joes, you have two issues. The first issue everyone notices is "how do you make people like that interesting?" To be fair, they are also asking, in the same breath, "how do you make people like that powerful enough to be interesting PCs?", because while there are some really neat people in the real world, they would still die too quickly if when the zombie apocalypse occurs, and death is kinda boring sometimes.

This is pretty much easily solved by making the PCs powerful enough, possibly in an interesting way, so that they can go toe-to-toe with the bad guys, or maybe just the bad guy's minions, or maybe can at least run fast enough from the bad guy's minions. Radioactive spiders and renegades and rebels from the bad guys secretly brainwashed into thinking their humans are likely paths to take.

I'm sure you can come up with more yourself.

The other issue, which is actually very easy to solve with a little work ahead of time and some communication between the players and the GM (no, I'm not bitter, why do you ask?) is "How the #$^&*@! do you get a random bunch of mortals to stick together?"

In a Vampires game I ran once, I told everyone to start off playing a mortal. As mortals, they had mortal lives, with mortal concerns and mortal strengths. So when I started to introduce elements of something nasty... they did what most any sensible mortal would do - they looked for ways to avoid the plot hooks.

Even when sticking together for survival is the smartest thing to do... it usually only happens when it is in-your-face, and even then not often. For example:

When the zombie apocalypse happens, sure, all of the PCs might have met in the bar local convenience store, but after they get a breather and realize what's going on... they very well might not stick around. If I am here and my family is there, screw the line-backer whose interested in kendo, the hot chick who came in to rob the place and has a very useful shotgun, and the med student - I want to make sure my family is safe. And the self-made businessman who has paranoid thoughts and a bomb shelter filled with 5 year's worth of supplies? He isn't going my way. And the sexpot teenage couple? They've got "NPC" stamped over them, I bet they'll be dead before the first half-hour of the movie game is over.

So if you are going to have the PCs be mortals, make them connected. Give them reasons to stick together especially if they aren't in a zombie apocalypse. Make them play the type who would stick their nose where it doesn't belong. Because until they do, the story doesn't go anywhere, and that would be boring.

Escheton
2010-06-07, 02:07 AM
Just make them be the brady bunch or something. Connected lives and goals.

Another_Poet
2010-06-07, 02:29 AM
To answer your question, yes, as a player I would willingly make a totally normal, everyday character - under certain conditions:

1) The DM or system makes it clear that that's what I'm supposed to be playing. (Unlikely to play a Commoner in D&D unless the DM says it's an all-commoner game, for example. Although I did once and it was awesome.)

2) The other players are also playing normal people. This isn't a hard and fast rule, I might play a normal person for RP reasons when the other PCs have tougher characters, but it wouldn't be fun for long. If everyone else is slinging spells and I am hiding under the table it sucks.

I played an entire team of normal people (a family of 4, a friend of the family, and a hobo) in a survival game once. It was a lot of fun.

Also, I don't think you're really duping your players. If you ask the group to make a bunch of completely ordinary, no-special-powers characters, they're going to expect that you have something up your sleeve. It's just part of the setting or campaign premise, it's not a trick really.

In other words do it with a clean conscience, and have fun :smallsmile:

742
2010-06-07, 04:10 AM
Challenge him. Tell him you know full well there's no way he can make that salesman with an innocent backstory and make it awesome. I know if I were told that, I would not simply roll over and say you were right, I would build the world's coolest salesman with an innocent backstory. And then I would be proud of myself for having done so. Anybody can throw together powerful things and call themselves powerful. It takes skill to take something mediocre and make it awesome.

its true; normal people tend to avoid trouble. even mild badasses tend to avoid it, only the idiots actually run towards it. tell them its for a gritty non-magic game and tell the powergamer to, well, knock it off. maybe the character has never left the city limits of [major city] or large rural area "has never been outside the state of montana" or "has never been outside of LA." their "badassery" level; it still leaves plenty of opportunity for badassery (maybe a mob enforcer or small time assassin or a big businessperson or brilliant performer/doctor/thirdthing with a dark past). but no i dont think i could make a character that was normal/boring and could still justifiably go on a supernatural adventure without everything being totally contrived and wacky. and even if i could arthur dent was a wonderful character only because he was surrounded by people like ford and zaphod for whom he could play the straight-man. a room full of normals would be boring.

amuletts
2010-06-07, 05:14 AM
I agree that characters need a reason to get involved with the plot. When I create a character that's always the first thing I have in mind: Why is this person an Adventurer? Of course, I play D&D and all adventurers are extraordinary in some way, but I always give them vulnerabilities even though it is not required and none of the other players do. But I like the role-play aspect and weaker characters have more scope for that.
Strong characters do not quake in fear at the hoard of monsters. So, yeah. In horror it makes perfect sense to have normal people with very few hit points. You want 'em to run around, scared for their lives! But in that case do not make it a game where the solution is whacking things with big weapons. Make the solution something that ordinary people can do but with difficulties (Zombies) in the way.
And you'll totally keep your players happy if the accountant gets do do some accounting and the shelf-stacker gets to stack shelves. What I mean is they don't have many skills but it's nice if they get to use the ones they have just once, in a way that advances the plot and makes them feel valuable. Perhaps the mad scientists accounts don't add up and this is an important clue about what his experiments *really* involved. Perhaps they have to go to the supermarket to track down some rare ingredient and the shelf stacker knows exactly where it is! Well, gosh, wasn't it lucky they were part of the team?
On killing people... it's horror so do. But not til the end unless you can't halp it, because it's boring sitting out. If some of the players have to sacrifice themselves in the final showdown it'll mak it much scarier and more memorable. IMO your character dying in a meaningful way is really awesome.
Oh but warn all the players they're going to die at the start. Hee hee. That's nice and evil and scary. 'Cos they'll be going 'Oh sh**, oh sh**! I'm going to die!'

rakkoon
2010-06-07, 05:49 AM
I once played a 19 year old college student that was transferred to a Fantasy world. We didn't flesh out our characters much before the game and kind of chose our class ingame. One guy went into a church all night and got called by the resident deity and such. It was kinda fun

Totally Guy
2010-06-07, 06:01 AM
I'd tell them what you told us. But that's just me.

If you are going to dupe them, how would you do that? Pitch a false campaign premise?